Charles C. Ryrie Quotes

The solution to the problems of the church today lies in solving the problems of individual Christians, and the remedy is a person - the Holy Spirit.

Thus the conscience, though it may lead the unsaved man aright in some areas, cannot save him, since it is defiled, seared, and evil. But in regeneration it is cleansed and used by the Lord to guide the believer in his political, vocational, spiritual, and social relations.

By wholesome I mean balanced. There is nothing more devastating to the practice of spiritual living than an imbalance.

In the Hebrews passage three preventives are listed for a calloused Christian heart. The first is daily exhortation of one another (3:13).

There could be no such experience if death means extinction or cessation. Death always means separation, and it does in Romans 6 as well.

By the word genuine I mean biblical, for only in the Bible do we have truth that is indisputably reliable. For this reason, the Bible must be the guide and test for all of our experiences in the spiritual life, for biblical spirituality is the only genuine spirituality.

Theology is for everyone. Indeed, everyone needs to be a theologian. In reality, everyone is a theologian - of one sort or another. And therein lies the problem. There is nothing wrong with being an amateur theologian or a professional theologian, but there is everything wrong about being an ignorant or a sloppy theologian. Therefore, every Christian should read theology. Theology simply means thinking about God and expressing those thoughts in some way.

The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals.

In other words, the death to sin of Romans 6 is a separation from the power of the sin nature to cause the believer to continue in sin. It

That word maturity seems to hold the key to the concept of spirituality, for Christian maturity is the growth which the Holy Spirit produces over a period of time in the believer.

While this may simply be another way of saying that spirituality is Christian maturity, it tries to delineate more openly the factors of Spirit-control over a period of time.

One of my former teachers repeatedly reminded us that an imbalance in theology was the same as doctrinal insanity.

The result of these many voices and general lack of agreement on what really are the biblical means to Christian maturity seems to be breeding two kinds of believers. There are some who are not quite sure that they are even on the right track of normal Christian living; there are others who are quite certain that they have arrived at the station. Or, to change the metaphor, there seem to be so many master chefs around that some are so confused by looking only at the various menus that they are starving to death, while others are sampling everything that is offered with resultant indigestion, and a few have sworn allegiance to one and are convinced that all the others are frauds.

Spirituality is a grownup yet growing relation to the Holy Spirit.